“It’s what I wanted to do when I grew up,” said Still River Road resident Mike Taylor of his long career in the boat-building industry. He will be the speaker at the Warner Free Lecture Friday, Jan. 11, at 7 p.m. in Volunteers Hall, talking about “The Popularity of Multihull Design in Custom Yacht Construction.” While most of us may not have either the money or the time for a custom yacht, multihull or otherwise, we can all pretend to be the future owner of a boat Taylor will create for us through his slides and experience.
Taylor grew up in Central Maine and graduated from the Maine Maritime Academy with a B.S. in marine engineering. For two summers he worked on ore boats in the Great Lakes and then spent two years as deckhand on private yachts, sailing to different parts of the world. A highlight was being chief engineer/mate aboard the Regina Maris of Boston, sailing from Athens to New York City for the Tall Ships parade of 1976. For three years he worked in San Juan as a marine surveyor, inspecting private yachts and commercial passenger ships.
In 1983 Taylor moved to Boston to work for a large insurance company as a marine inspector for its yacht portfolio. After 13 years, he became self-employed as a surveyor and consultant.
An exciting opportunity came when he was asked to head up a project, based in Paris, designing and managing the systems for catamarans and other multihull yachts. This new type of yacht differed from a monohull sailing vessel in its design and in its systems. In design, the deck is more than double the size of a monohull boat, and it is lighter and faster.
The story of the design process is what Taylor will present Jan. 11. The process might begin at a yacht show in Monaco when a potential client—say, for example, the owner of Cirque du Soleil—chooses to buy a multihull boat. Taylor would consult with the client, “showing artsy drawings,” and they would discuss the concept. Taylor would find a shipyard and work with the builders, designing and managing all of the systems, from electrical to fuel to wastewater disposal.
In a phone conversation with the Press, Taylor said the audience won’t have trouble understanding the engineering involved in the process. For one thing, he has lost a file that detailed the design of some of the systems, so he will be focusing on the beginning and end of the process. At the end, the audience may be sitting on the deck of a fast moving catamaran yacht, outclassing the traditional monohull yachts around it. In January in Harvard, even the virtual experience of yachting sounds very appealing.
A multihull yacht. (Courtesy photo)
